Arguments and Obstinance: addendum
by Besina
Summary: This is an addendum to Arguments and Obstinance, and a lot of the references won't make sense unless you've read that one first. This is a meta fic wherein one of the characters at least, is aware that there *is* a fourth wall to break. Everyone else is oblivious. The formatting looks much better on the AO3 version. Meta/Friendship.


Sherlock whirled around the flat, his brain spinning like mad as he de...

**"Don't." ** The word printed itself on her screen, but she could almost hear it as it was spoken: dark, irritated, and not just a little bit threatening. It stopped her in her tracks.

He had now taken a few paces forward and was looking directly at the back of the screen - how exactly the author knew this was uncertain, as from this side, all he was was words.

She'd had a tiny taste of this before, but still was unsure how to go about dealing with it - last time her computer had exploded. Well, not really exploded, so much as crashed and emitted a faint plastic burning smell. The repair bill had been horrific.

'Don't what?' she typed.

"Don't finish that sentence. If I hear that word _one_ more time, I _will_ kill someone."

_"_ _Sherlock?" John queried, both he and Lestrade looking at the man with worried expressions._

'What? Ded...' she typed, and was interrupted partway through.

"I _told you_ not to use it!" A tiny bit of spittle flew from his mouth.

Wow, yeah, he looked like a man halfway to crazy street.

'Why not?' she typed. It was odd, but apparently this type of communication went straight to his brain, as no one else in the flat seemed to hear it.

"Do not type a 'u', or I will have had it."

'I still don't understand.'

"Do you have _any _clue how many stories are written about me each day? Care to wager how often that word is employed in just a _single one?__" _He seemed to be steeling himself for something. "If anyone ever says," he looked as if he were about to bite into something extremely sour, and perhaps gone off three months prior, "'deduce', 'deduced', 'deductive' or even 'deducted', especially since that one is, unless I'm doing maths, _completely wrong _and therefore even _more_ irritating, I shall be forced to take drastic measures."

_John was in the background trying to gain his attention. "What? You mean in the newspapers? Because frankly, I don't use it that often in the blog. I'll quit though, if you hate it so much."_

There was half a minute of silence.

Behind him, John and Lestrade could be heard conversing, _"I don't know. It's probably a mind-palace thing."_

_"How can you tell?"  
_

_"Well, see, he's staring at the wall, but not really looking at it, and then there's the talking to himself. He does that sometimes when he's thinking, though threatening inanimate objects is new..."_

The dialogue drifted back off to the background.

The diatribe continued, "John here may not be aware of them all, but I certainly notice each and every one that's written, and what irritates me, even more than the populace's extremely creative dirty minds, is the ungodly amount of overuse that word gets. It's like having someone whisper it into your ear every second of every day. The term isn't even one-hundred percent correct, for gods sake! As I've been informed that the majority of what I do is inductive reasoning, not that.. _that_..." he cringed again, "other thing.

"You have Mycroft to thank for that little gem, which I've been unable to dislodge from my brain ever since his smirking face brought it up."

'So you really don't want me to type a 'u'?'

"Absolutely not." He fumed silently.

She remembered paying for the repair bill for two months. Still, it irked.

'So definitely not a 'c', then either?" she poked.

"I am _warning_ you..."

E

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement, as Sherlock, having at some point gotten ahold of John's gun, brought his arm up and managed to empty two rounds into the wall before the ex-army captain and DI had him pinned to the ground and disarmed.

_"I think he may be hallucinating," _John commented.

_"You don't say. He just threatened then shot the wall!"_

Lestrade had Sherlock's arm pinned behind his back and John was sitting astride him, emptying out the clip._  
_

_"How long since he's slept?"  
_

_"Obviously far too long. I'm going to have to start drugging his tea when he hits three days."  
_

_"Up you go," _John said, dismounting the detective and hauling him to his feet with Lestrade's help as the genius was now handcuffed. _"Bedtime for brainiacs. You're obviously overworked."_

__Sherlock sputtered, "No! I'm _fine! She provoked me!" _ Then his mouth snapped shut as he realised exactly how insane that actually sounded.

"Who's this, Sherlock?" Greg asked gently, leading him down the hall to his bedroom.

"Um, no. No 'she'. Sorry, must have been dreaming while standing up."

Greg seemed to breathe easier at that explanation - at least he wouldn't be committing Sherlock to the looney bin just yet. He looked back at John, eyes flicking down to the illegal firearm. "Best I didn't see that. And probably better if you found a more secure place to keep it," he said, nodding toward the man he had in tow.

John quickly tucked it into his waistband under the back of his jumper, turning over new places in his mind to store it where it wouldn't be immediately found by a nosy flatmate who now held a personal grudge against wallpaper. No matter where he hid it, blanks would probably be safer.

"What in the world is going on up here?" For Mrs Hudson, it was almost a shout. "I was having a nice little nap in front of the telly, when suddenly, gunfire! I thought we had _talked_ about shooting guns in..." her eyes landed on the far wall. "Oh for goodness sakes! I just had that repaired! This is going on your rent, young man!" She briefly looked about for the delinquent in question only to see him being led, handcuffed into his room by the DI.

"Oh lord, what has he done now?" She asked, all ire forgotten for the time-being as worry took over.

"Not much, Mrs Hudson, just a little overtired, and seeing things."

"Will he be all right?" she fluttered, "I can bring up some tea and scones."

"I'm sure that would be lovely Mrs H," John said as he led her back to the landing, where she scurried back down to her flat, ready to save the world with baked goods.

John followed Lestrade in, only to see Sherlock now laying down unhappily, and one hand cuffed to the bed.

"I'll swing back around for them once you think he's gotten enough rest." He pressed a key into John's palm. "How long do you think?"

John looked his patient over and sighed, "At least two days," at which Sherlock let out a squawk of indignation.

"Two days," he repeated with finality, daring Sherlock to protest his professional opinion a second time, his eyes dropping to his patient as he said it. "You do anything but rest over them, and I'll have a word with Mycroft."

Sherlock snorted, but otherwise ignored the goings-on.

Taking things into the whisper category, he hissed at the ceiling, "This is your fault."

'No," she typed, 'I believe you fried my computer.'

"I won't apologise for that. You left John a confused and anxious mess for a week."

'I suppose you've got a point, though I was hardly used to characters taking over my stories.'

He sniffed.

'Well, can we at least call it a truce?' There was a quiet moment of contemplation before she asked, 'Those bullets, were they meant to...?'

"Of course not," he snipped, still quietly, "The wall's merely a backdrop, there's no way they could have crossed."

'Then why?'

"I had to shut you up _somehow_."

John had just stopped speaking to Lestrade long enough to notice Sherlock's continuing, though whispered, dialogue with the ceiling.

"Sherlock? If you're going to talk in your sleep, it's best you do it with your _eyes closed._" And with that he slid his hand down across the consulting detective's face, shutting his eyes for him, and letting his hand linger over his mouth, until Sherlock finally gave in, took a deep breath and tried to relax. He was stuck here for several days now thanks to all that, and not very pleased about it. Still, he'd made his point. That's what mattered.

'We have a deal then? I won't confuse John or use _that_ word, and you'll stop blowing up my computer or trying to shoot me through the screen, even if its not likely to work?"

Sherlock looked somewhat appeased and nodded once, briskly, passing it off as stretching his neck when John's focus suddenly fell on him once more. It was the best deal either of them were going to get. He made a show of yawning and rolled over toward his cuffed hand.

She backed off and switched off the computer. Well, at least it wasn't smoking this time.


End file.
